


wasteland, baby!

by clumsyhearts



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: F/M, gear up for the excessive amount of imagery, hoo boy is it ever a slow burn, hozier said yearning rights, i write em like i call em, in which i am an idiot, these idiot kids think they are alone in their affections
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2020-04-23 07:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19146430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clumsyhearts/pseuds/clumsyhearts
Summary: In which Gilbert is hopelessly in love with Anne in fourteen songs and fourteen memories.Wasteland, Baby!and its lyrics belong to Hozier.





	1. i. nina cried power

**Author's Note:**

> Hozier's album came out in March. I heard it and immediately began writing this.  
> My only regret is that it took this long!  
> Not entirely canon-compliant, but hey, what is?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sweet nothings. _very_ early spring. i/xiv

_“It’s not the waking, it’s the rising  
It is the grounding of a foot uncompromising”_

.

_He runs from the moment he can walk, chasing after some forlorn object he may never reach._

_His father protests, still not yet recovered from the death of his wife in her quest to bring forth this beautiful, spirited child into the world to let the same child run freely, even on his own land. But the child will not hear, fascinated by the object he chases that none but him can see. Chasing after a fleeting moment of bliss when his chubby fingers close around air and he tumbles headfirst into a field of weeds that are tall, tall, taller than he ever hopes to be._

_And although his legs still once he is fully on the ground, and his father yells in a brief moment of panic, the child thinks nothing but of the object that slipped through his fingers, gone with the wind, never to be seen again._

.

It is this memory which echoes through his mind, faded and crinkled at the corners as if it were an old book, as he chases the laughter of the girl with auburn hair. She’s been running in her lopsided, loping stride through the fields that desperately need some crop planted underneath them if he has any hopes for a profitable harvest this autumn. The gasping laughter had only started after he’d grasped at the end of her braid from behind, only to find the end hairs soft and slick, and a burst of speed from her left his fingers closing around air as she laughed.  


Oh, that he could listen to her laugh for the rest of his days. Damned he’d be if he didn’t try.  


Determined to catch her before she reaches the barely blossoming apple tree that marks the end of his property, he kicks his legs into faster gear, chasing past the breathless anticipation, breathing hard now. Despite the groaning pains in his legs that would make a fuss in the morning when he woke and tried to walk, he was gaining on her, and he knew she knew it. Her fatigue took precedence over her anxiety, and her strides became more sloppy, less defined.  


He is close enough now to pass her and beat her to the touch of the apple tree, but decides to forgo the race altogether and, after the moment’s hesitation from his heart which brings him half a centimeter closer to her, wraps his arms around her stomach and lifts her in the air, keeping momentum steady by spinning in a circle.  


She shrieks with joy, yelling his name across the blooming orchard, and he laughs, tightening his grip around her and spinning once again. The tones of their laughter melt and mold together until they become indistinguishable from one another – simply pure bliss echoing through the early spring air.  


By the time he sets her down, ceding the floor and advantage of stronger legs back to her, and she punches him in the arm and wins the race, his cheeks hurt from the enormity of his grin, but he does not care.  


He cries power as she touches the base of the apple tree and turns back to him with her crooked, blossoming, wickedly victorious smile, as if she knows everything about her is the touch that will befall him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome. I'm so glad you meandered your way here.
> 
> If you'd like, you can find me on other websites:  
> on wattpad, where I never post and write about other things: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.wattpad.com/user/ffairlyfloral)  
> on pinterest, where I have many pretty boards: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.pinterest.com/ffairlyfloral/)  
> or right here on ao3, where I read (& comment on) far too many shirbert things: [@clumsyhearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clumsyhearts)


	2. ii. almost (sweet music)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> workin' day. early spring. ii/xiv

_“I wouldn’t know where to start  
Sweet music playing in the dark”_

.

Oftentimes, in Avonlea, music flows from the ground up, stemming from the roots of the flowers and tall grasses and winding its way through the warm air. Working songs grow and tremble in the throats of farmers and men tilling the ground, while sweet harmonies leave the mouths of women watering and harvesting gardens. If the day is clear enough, and the wind carries the tones far enough, all of the little town could sing the same song with each other, a proverbial chorus echoing through the woods until the tired sun began to dip beneath the blanketed horizon and men and women trudge home for a meal and a soft bed.

Gilbert is working with Jerry Baynard and Anne Shirley-Cuthbert on the Cuthbert farm for today, a warm early spring day, tilling the ground and watering the sprouts after the week-long drought that had plagued their island threatened to dry out the tiny seedlings of crop. His father’s passing meant that he needed extra hands on his land – Bash was, of course, obligated to help, but the two of them together knew so little about true farming that it would have been imprudent to farm the land without help. Thus, Matthew Cuthbert offered help on his farm every other day if he could have extra hands on his own farm, and Gilbert had readily agreed. His hands had worked many a day in his life, but never before had he planned an entire season, start to finish. Ruining his first year would not bode well for winter finances, nor for Bash’s future success in farming the land.

Jerry, he learns quickly, is not as shy as he appears, conversing quickly and easily with Anne and Matthew alike, sometimes in French, despite both Anne and Matthew’s lack of proper French knowledge. Gilbert knew some; he could typically pick out a few key words per sentence when a teacher spoke slowly, but Jerry had grown his whole life speaking the language and his words sounded more like spit muddled together than individual words easily understandable. As such, his command of the French language is significant, and Gilbert’s lacking.

Additionally, Gilbert learns near the third dry hour of standing in the field, as Anne returns from the well balancing water jugs across her arms, the Cuthbert’s hired help enjoys singing.

Anne groans as she sets down the jug next to Gilbert, who nods in thanks towards her, unable to trust himself to spit out a logical sentence through his parched throat and previously unreliable word choice. “Must you _always_ sing, Jer?” she yells to him, her single braid (because much has changed since he first left Avonlea; the two of them are more grown now, and a new year of age demands a sleeker hairstyle) whipping through the arid wind. “Can’t we have one peaceful day where we simply listen to the wind through the long grass and the bugs chirp and I might pretend I exist in writing somewhere?” (Because she is Anne, after all, and it is impossible for one person to change _this_ much in the span of a twelvemonth.)

“No,” he shouts back, throwing his empty water jug on the ground and sticking his tongue out at her in such a childish manner that it makes Gilbert snort, before starting to sing again.

The notes he is singing do not align with any words in particular. He’s singing nonsense syllables in a way that Gilbert is unfamiliar with, but that must be a familial way of passing the time as they work, and he’s grateful to the sounds anyways. _Turlette_ , he remembers someone saying to him once as they observed a singer near Quebec who was belting out syllables and instrumental noise with her mouth. Perhaps this is the more practical application.  


The rhythm that Jerry is beating out with his voice reminds him an awful lot of a song that some men on his ship had sung, as they cleaned and rowed and shoveled endless amounts of coal – never loud enough to disturb first-class passengers, of course, and never loud enough for their uptight shift supervisor to hear them, but loud enough so that they could hear each other above the ruckus of below-deck. Although he does not miss his time on the ship, where work was never scarce and his feelings only had to be dealt with in the dead of night, he does miss the loudness that accompanied the crew.  


He believes he still remembers the lyrics to the song, too. As Anne turns around to roll her eyes at Gilbert, in protest of Jerry’s loud _turlette_ , he smirks at her and parts his lips to begin the song.  


_Well, they call me Hangin’ Johnny  
Away, boys, away…_

“Not you, too!” she yells, the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.  
Jerry quirks up an eyebrow in his direction, singing his nonsensical syllables louder in the same rhythm to continue the tune as best he can.  


_Well, I never hanged nobody,  
And it’s hang, boys, hang_

Anne groans at him, her face a perfectly lovely mixture of discontent and intrigue, before she sets down the last full water pail by her section of the crops and whips back around. Jerry laughs, the sound echoing across the dry land and stinging wind, and Gilbert launches into the second verse without any invitation or rebuttal from either of his companions.

 _Well, first I hanged me mother_  
_Away, boys, away,_  
_Me sister and me brother_  
_And it’s hang, boys, hang_

He shakes his sweaty curls out of his eyes to glance back at Anne, who’s pressing her lips together in her signature half-smile, still trying, bless her heart, to work the field. Jerry has, by now, abandoned his work to jostle Anne good-naturedly, and Gilbert feels his sunburnt cheeks split with joy seeing them tussle like siblings.

_Well, next I hanged me granny  
Away, boys, away_

Anne crumbles under the temptation to wrestle with Jerry and shoves him back as he begins to muss her hair. Jerry, mocking injury, cries, “Gilbert! Make yourself useful! Help a man out!”

“Oh, a _man_ ,” Anne crows, burying his head into her shoulders as she yanks him towards her. Gilbert jogs over to the pair of them, grabbing Jerry’s hands and pulling to wrench him from Anne’s death grasp. “Some _man_ you made when you – _Gilbert Blythe, put me down!_ ”

He’s laughing as he yanks her away from Jerry, in what is perhaps not the most effective way to grab her from assaulting his fellow man. His arms are wrapped around her stomach; he can feel the pulsation of her diaphragm as she laughs.

(It is imprudent to _touch_ a woman, of course, let alone wrestle with one or pick her up off the ground and swing her back and forth. At this point, his prudent decision-making skills have been left behind. No one is here to find them except for Jerry, and he does not care about the impoliteness or downright impropriety of Gilbert wrestling with Anne, not when Jerry had only just tugged at her hair no less than half a minute ago.

 _Just this once_ , he lets himself be irrational, and focus on the softness of her hair and stomach against his cheeks and arms, respectively. It is intoxicating to feel her stomach press against his forearms or to taste the loose strands of her hair that whip into his mouth. Not that he would ever _tell_ her these things, of course.)

Gilbert swings Anne from left to right twice before placing her on the ground again, where she whirls to face him, cheeks pink from exertion.

Whatever intelligent thing he should have said in the breath of anticipation is completely lost to him, blown away by the arid wind as her loose strands of hair whip across her flushed face, to be retrieved by Gilbert later today when he would kick himself for losing his tongue completely.

The silence between them stretches for an extensive beat before she punches him in the arm and splits her lips into a wickedly triumphant grin, licking her lips before _she_ begins in song.

_Well! I’d hang the Holy Family  
And it’s hang, boys, hang_

His remaining breath rushes out of his lungs in a quick gasp, as he presses his lips together in a wide smile and as Jerry shakes his head. She never fails to amaze him, in her blatant stubbornness or extensive vocabulary or terrible stories from her past, and though he’s no idea how she knows this sailing song, he decides it is perhaps best to chalk it up to the general unpredictability of Anne Shirley-Cuthbert.

_Well, I never hangs for money  
Away, boys, away_

She is still grinning, her lips splitting into wickedness the longer they remain tilted upright, as she retreats backwards towards the spot she was in, daring him to say something, _anything_. The right words do not magically tumble out of his mouth, as they never do. Instead, Gilbert wets his lips and shouts the next line of the song in unison with her, letting his own lips curl upwards.

_It’s just that hangin’s so bloody funny!  
And it’s hang, boys, hang_

Avonlea songs are working songs, just like shipyard songs, with a clear beat and rhythm and a unifying factor that is repetitive but ensures that everyone can, at some point, sing a line. The noise and song here may have sprung from the ground, and on a ship, from the sea, but in the end, they weave back to the people singing.

The music winds its way through the fields as they continue working, rooting itself in salty air and warm soil alike, and Gilbert misses the sea a little less.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there kindred spirits! Leave a comment if you desire!
> 
> find me, a ghost, on wattpad: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.wattpad.com/user/ffairlyfloral)  
> find me, far too active, on pinterest: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.pinterest.com/ffairlyfloral/)  
> or right here on ao3, also way too active: [@clumsyhearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clumsyhearts)


	3. iii. movement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> burning house. heroic deeds. still spring. iii/xiv

_“You are a call to motion  
There, all of you a verb in perfect view”_

.

The smell of smoke is the worst part of any house fire.

It dampens all other senses, bringing everyone to their knees in weakness. Without it, the town could effectively fight the fire, but the black smoke from the home quenches the air, permeating the town’s weak lungs and spitting its own poison from the shell of the house.

Gilbert is on hands and knees, balanced precariously on one of the slanted roofs of the Pye home, breathing in smoke from the open window as if it is air. Tossing buckets of water through the windows is a task given to the boys of the town – those not yet men, but not too little to be in any real danger. Men have lungs and joints too weak for the smoke and task, and little boys are needed for carrying water buckets. So Gilbert and his classmates find themselves stationed at every window, flinging water desperately into the belly of the beast as if it will have any effect. 

He remembers, fleetingly, what Anne had explained after she’d run into the last house fire – _Fire needs oxygen. Shutting the doors and windows deprives it_ – and wonders if the house would be better off if all efforts at water were ignored and the men closed the windows and prayed for the best. But this is no time to test theories. 

As he’s shouting for additional buckets of water, coughing, hoping his throat would last through the long night, he spots his other classmates – the girls. Ruby is comforting Josie, who appears to be sobbing into her arms. Tillie and Jane are soaking washcloths and passing them to men to cough into and wipe their foreheads with. Diana is keeping the littler children out of the dangerous area by forming a corral of sorts with them – which, from the glimpse Gilbert catches, is working fairly effectively. Anne, of course, is carrying water buckets with Jerry, because why on Earth wouldn’t she? 

She and Jerry arrive under his roof, passing the buckets up to Charlie, who fairly throws them through the roof they’re trying desperately to keep intact. Gilbert can hear Anne scoff and demand Charlie to get down from the ladder; he promptly obeys, not one to question Anne’s demands, not on a night like tonight. 

The fire has grown so intense Gilbert nearly can’t breathe, although if that fact was due more to the thick smoke or sweltering temperature he cannot tell. His fingers reach for the next water bucket and grasp around a scrap of fabric, long, stone-dry. 

“Wrap it around your mouth and nose,” Anne explains, a mask of sorts fashioned for her face as well. “It will filter out some of the smoke.” 

Gilbert does, tying a tight knot around his head and surprising himself with how much it did help. Although he suspects he is already doomed to a few weeks of steady coughing due to the quantity of smoke he had already inhaled, the mask might eliminate most of the risk surrounding death due to smoke inhalation. 

As Anne passes him buckets in silence broken only by their labored breathing and the yells of men surrounding, he hears a yelp from inside, accompanied by a shriek from the schoolgirls’ section. 

“My kitten!” Josie shrieks, making a strong effort to escape Ruby’s iron grip, but she’s desolated by the loss of her home and weak from the smoke already and soon abandons the effort to escape. “Ruby! My kitten!” 

Anne swears, and before he can even process the swear in his brain, she’s darted up the ladder past him and heaved herself through the window. 

He shouts after her, voice joined by Jerry’s frantic yelling from below, but it is of no use – she is bound to retrieve the kitten. The silhouette of her in her white dress against the reds and oranges and blues of the fire sears a striking image in his mind; although the timing is far from ideal, it seems his mind has other agendas. 

_Now is not the time to appreciate Anne and the way she moves!_ Gilbert orders his mind silently, and presently he snaps back to the task at hand. 

The fire is only licking the edge of the room, having claimed the east wall. It only takes her a few moments to cross the room, drop to her knees, and crawl into the raging house in search of Josie Pye’s kitten. 

Now determined to extinguish at least part of the flame, Gilbert takes the abandoned buckets and directs them towards the east wing, managing to at least tame the fire to one-quarter of the room. In doing so, he notices that the wood of the floors is warping – a sure sign that the fire below had climbed high enough to ignite the bottom half of the wooden floor. Any moment could be the demise of the planks, and Anne would surely be trapped in the house. 

“Anne!” he shouts through the window, his vocal chords and ashy throat screaming in protest. “Hurry!” 

Slight coughing makes his reply – not far now. His breath hitches in his throat. 

Several long moments pass before he spots her in the doorway on her knees, coughing, clutching the black kitten belonging to the Pye’s. Gilbert calls her name, desperation crawling into every pore. He does not wish to think about what will happen if she doesn’t escape soon. 

“You have to move quickly,” he calls, his voice hitching out of fear. “The floors will hold, but not for long.” 

Anne coughs, nodding, before shouting, “Can you lift me out if I fall?” 

Gilbert moves forward on the roof, wary of the unsteady creaking and crumbling windowpane, until he is flush with the house. 

“Always,” he confirms, and she stands. 

It takes two and a half agonizing seconds for Anne to reach Gilbert’s outstretched hand, in which floors crumbled around her and her feet searched desperately for a grip, flames licking the walls of the room. Two and a half seconds – he counts – before her fingers grasp onto his and he pulls, hard, to help her out of the window. Her left hand in his right, her right hand securing the kitten – 

She grasps his hand tightly. He lifts her out. 

Later, it would be the fact that she did not scream that keeps Gilbert awake at night. 

Anne did not scream as the floorboards gave way just after her toes had left and Gilbert’s grip on her tightened and he reached with his other hand and hauled her out of the flame before it even began to burn. She did not scream as he raked her legs against the tiled roof and she did not scream as he grabbed her and fairly leapt off the collapsing roof as the house imploded. She did not scream as he held her in his arms for a few moments afterward, burying his face into smoke-smelling hair and actually crying from fear. She did not scream of pain at the scratched legs and burns raking their way up her legs – none serious enough to warrant amputation, but ones that would leave their scars. 

Anne did not scream at all. 

She hardly made a sound except to sob in terror into Gilbert’s shoulder and to cough the remaining smoke from her lungs and to return the tiny, mewling kitten, unaware of how much pain it nearly caused, to its owner. 

Matthew cries next to her and Marilla refuses to stop thanking Gilbert and Diana squeezes her hands repeatedly and Jerry will not stop muttering prayers. And Gilbert refuses to fully leave her side until the break of dawn, when the minister has all stand to pray. He helps her to her feet, keeping his arm wrapped around her waist, supporting nearly all of her weight. She rests her head against his as they stand in front of the ruin of a home, listening to the minister pray for a quick rebuild and recovery to all affected – too close for propriety’s sake, but he promised he’d lift her up. 

“You did good,” he whispers to her, shifting his position so she could be lifted a bit higher, and through the ash on her face a small smile appears. 

“ _Well_ ,” she corrects. “I did well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure you tire of me by this point but thanks for reading!
> 
> This chapter's trope has been done before by many lovely authors. I'm fond of the storyline - probably one of my favorite ever moments from AWAE! Check out ["kindling"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18737128) by gayrefrain if you're also fond of this trope. So sorry for reusing a storyline but goddamn I love this scene.
> 
> find me on wattpad (I have nothing to offer): [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.wattpad.com/user/ffairlyfloral)  
> find me on pinterest (I have great boards): [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.pinterest.com/ffairlyfloral/)  
> or find me here on ao3 (I have great comments): [@clumsyhearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clumsyhearts)


	4. iv. no plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> telling stories. late spring. iv/xiv

_“Your secret is safe with me, and if secrets were like seeds  
When I’m lying under marble, marvel at flowers you’ll have made”_

.

Anne confides in Gilbert on a spring night after a class party at the Barry’s pond.

The heat is palpable, ridiculous for springtime, wrapping its tendrils around Gilbert as he sat on an abandoned slab of wood, likely infested by termites in the summertime by the looks of the chewing on the edges. This is the beginning, he knows, the beginning of the end of springtime – the beginning of the summer season, sweat being a constant companion, Bash’s chiding teases and working their fields, books shoved into corners around the house for the spare minutes he had to study. 

There are still a few colder days left, he reckons, and one week before school gets out for the season. At this moment, though, the heat wants for nothing but to introduce the season already.

Gilbert had already been removed from the party, claiming to some of the boys he was with that he needed a moment to breathe outside, to which Moody had cleverly replied, “We _are_ already outside, Blythe,” and Gilbert had laughed before quietly excusing himself. What he’d needed was a moment without everyone around him, asking questions, prying into his life.

_Yes_ , exploring the world had been great fun, and _yes_ , he did miss it sometimes. _Yes_ , there was always work to do onboard, and _no_ , his wages hadn’t been fair. _Yes_ , his friend Bash did have a wife, and _yes_ , she was, in fact, pregnant. _No_ , Bash was _not_ his slave, he’d been a free man for a long time.

He didn’t mind the questions so much as the answers – he did not want to expose the reason he’d left Avonlea, he did not want to receive people’s ongoing pity, and mostly he did not want to seem like the only person in town who never asked about other people’s goings-on because he was never given a chance to shut up about his own life.

Gilbert was nothing special. He was just a boy, growing too quickly into a man, hoping to one day find peace with the people he lived around by being just their equal. Nothing more and nothing less. 

And so he’d been sat, head buried in his hands, in the fading dusky light as Mr. Barry lit lanterns near where everyone else was gathered, thinking over everything. His neighbors, his friends, his home. His father – Bash and Mary and their baby – his studies. 

Rustling grass is what forces him to jolt his head from his hands, arrange a little mask of composure, forcing his eyes to focus on the subject at hand. 

She is grasping a little lantern, and the light plays across her face excitedly, revealing her expression of confusion and worry before – 

“ _Oh_ , Gilbert,” she sighs, holding the lantern out further in front of her.

“Anne,” he says, moving to stand, but before her can, she’s fallen onto the ground in front of him, arranged somehow in a neat way.

He cannot stop studying the way her expressions shift in this light, countenance reflected in shattered pieces, dangerously. Her eyebrows are narrowed inwards and her lips are pulling down. She notices him staring – he knows – but she does not comment on it, choosing instead to lick her upper lip and ask, “Are you feeling alright?”

“Ah,” he says, a hint of laughter creeping into the word. Because, truly, how to answer this question? In most, if not all, lights, he is fine – alive, well, healthy, with friends and a loving, if not a bit boisterous, home. There is nothing, in terms of material items, he could want for, with the exception of more money. 

Perhaps he is lacking emotional strength, but this had never been more important than checking off the necessary physical-need boxes. Gilbert’s emotions could always be dealt with later on, when he cannot sleep at night, when he wanders haphazardly through fields upon fields of crops he did not know how to care for with his own two hands, when he misses his father the most.

But he’s hesitated too long in answering Anne’s question now, and she interprets his debating silence accurately. Her expression crumples into a familiar one, eyes full of pity, mouth set in a hard line. 

Somehow he never seems to mind receiving her pity. He knows, somehow, that it comes at a hard-earned price.

“You know,” Anne says, setting the lantern on the dirt between them, “I have never told you about my life before Avonlea.”

The emotion catching in his throat makes it impossible for him to respond beyond a simple nod; he is suddenly incredibly grateful for someone who is able to recognize how little he wants to talk about himself. 

She runs her hands up and down the length of her arms, as if she is chilled, before beginning in the form of a story, though nothing about what she has gone through could ever be printed in any of the stories she usually writes.

“I spent much of my life, before here, shuffled between various orphanages and half-houses or, in the worst of nights, nooks in alleyways; none of this is important, of course. Once I was here, it was as if nothing else mattered. Beyond my status as an orphan, no one cared about what I had been through or who I had met outside of the town, what I knew. No one seemed to remember that I had lived eleven years before I had met anyone within the borders of this town. I was here, and that was all they seemed to care about.

“Still, that does not excuse the simple facts: I had existed before I called Avonlea my most beloved home, and I still struggle through memories from when I did. Simply because no one else cares enough to ask over my true past, beyond the initial facts, does not excuse the fact that there was a past to remember.

“The first thing I can remember is a house – not a home, Gilbert; I dearly hope you’ll never have to confuse the two – and too many bodies crammed within it. A mother, a father, children exploding from the seams, and me. I cannot have been more than three of four, and I helped some of the elder siblings – who cannot have been more than six – care for the younger siblings.

“Other houses were less blurry. Some were stable, even, most of the time. Some of the orphanages were not nearly as bad as the houses. Some were worse. Most of them blurred right before my eyes, because no matter where I was, where I was headed, only one thing seemed to matter: no one truly wanted my presence. I was an unnecessary burden to some, a downright item of hatred to others, but to all, I was unwanted.

“Avonlea tells a different story, Gilbert. Since I have been here, someone has always wanted me – someone who did not simply need me or rely upon me for survival, but someone who simply wanted me. And perhaps they did not want all of me, broken and still healing, still grieving a childhood lost, but they wanted some part of me, some part of my life, and I will always be grateful for that.

“There is not much of me before Avonlea. But it has never been a choice to leave. At least, never a choice I was willing to make. And although you always have a home to return to… perhaps what matters is that you have the _choice_ to leave your home, rather than the necessity.”

Gilbert allows her to breathe, after her soliloquy, but not before responding.

“I – I’m sorry no one ever asked after your past. That seems… rude.”

She shrugs, the heat of her story off the weight of her shoulders. “It’s rather unimportant now, isn’t it?” Standing, clutching the lantern, offering her hand for him to stand, too. “As I am here in Avonlea, I do not intend to leave it. And I have new stories to tell; ones that are ultimately more interesting and less devastating, I am sure.”

Gilbert takes her hand, and she pulls him to stand.

“Even so,” he returns, “your past is an important part of you, and it seems important for you to share it with someone.”

As they walk back towards the gathering, dusk and heat wrapping his bones equally, she glances sideways at him. The lantern-light flickers in her eyes, dangerous, dark, igniting. 

“Thank you,” he adds, finally. “For sharing with me.”

“Aye,” she agrees, jostling him with her free hand. “One of these days, Gilbert, I _will_ listen to your past. When you’re ready to share it, I’ll be ready to hear it. Deal?”

He shakes her proffered hand, awkwardly due to the angle they are standing at, before shaking his head, too.

“Deal,” he agrees, and her little smile in the firelight creeps dangerously towards the back of his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been in a bit of a Gil & Anne mood lately, if you can't tell
> 
> find me other places  
> on wattpad: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.wattpad.com/user/ffairlyfloral)  
> on pinterest: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.pinterest.com/ffairlyfloral/)  
> or on ao3: [@clumsyhearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clumsyhearts)


	5. v. nobody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> epistolatory memories. early summer. v/xiv  
> \+ 2 years past _i. nina cried power_

_“And I think about you though, everywhere I go  
And I’ve done everything and I’ve been everywhere, you know”_

.

It’s near ten o’clock at night when he stumbles across one of the notebooks from his travels he had previously believed was lost – it lay beneath his bed, slightly out of normal reach, causing some digging. As he pushes himself out from under his bed, he nearly tips his candle, remembering at the last moment that it was set beside him; he deftly avoids the object and pulls the black journal fully out from the bed.

As he unties the ribbon on the front, he is greeted with a single paper falling from the confines of the book – a map, annotated with ink, from his time on-board the steamer ship. The memory of his journeys at such a strange hour causes him to laugh audibly before remembering that Sebastian and Mary had only just gotten the baby to sleep and would likely appreciate some quiet time.

A journal, from his travels, two years past now. This would be the second summer since his return in the late fall, his second stifling summer away from the heat of Trinidad and the steamer ship and the forgetfulness of the sticky air of foreign islands.

He hadn’t thought on the steamer and its promise of an exciting life in a long, long while; something about this winter, and now with Bash and Mary’s baby, had caused him to sink firmly into Avonlea life again. Remembering his roots, perhaps, as a land-bound Blythe, or focusing on his studies. Visiting his father’s grave and only feeling a pang of the heart pain, without being completely wiped of motivation for the day. Raising his own crops for the first time, heading into his second season with significantly more knowledge than he had possessed this time last year.

This time last year, had he stumbled across this leather-bound journal, he might have hopped ship onto another steamer to avoid everything. Now, however, he can look back on his time aboard ship as a youthful adventure; the stuff of child legends, destiny-determining poetry, but not something he actively yearns for.

A collection of loose papers scatters as he opens the journal, and, picking one up, he chokes back a laugh – they are letters, letters he wrote but never sent, letters to everyone in Avonlea as he missed them the most. Letters addressed to Charlie and Moody and Fred, letters addressed to the Cuthberts, letters addressed to Diana Barry, letters addressed to his father. There are quite a few addressed to his father.

And, at the bottom of all, the letters addressed to Anne.

The response to her notion, the discussion of possible gold in Avonlea. The various drafts of this one letter. The various drafts of many others, discussing what he had seen and how much she would appreciate this glorious, death-defying, journey of self-discovery. The account of the woman in labor he’d helped, the story of his own birth. A formal apology on his behavior at his father’s funeral and any moment before it. A humorous and slightly _too_ flirtatious short draft on how the spot on his face where she had whacked him with her blackboard slate hurt if he thought on it too frequently.

In total, he wrote thirty-four letters over the span of the almost-year he was aboard the ship, and a sum of fifteen of those were to Anne. Ten to his father. The others divided among other classmates. Diana’s letter even had a swatch of Trinidadian fabric with it that he had thought she might enjoy to study, although he knew even then that she would not have used it for anything but to store a memory.

He _sent_ a total of one. To Anne. About the gold. With the purposeful misspelling in the hopes that she would catch his error and send him a reply. God, he could be an absolute idiot.

He thumbs idly through the drafts, some written over maps and previous postcards and discarded scraps of paper from port. They are all splattered through with some sort of ink that he supposes must have spilled in his bag at one destination or another. All of them unreadable, serving as pure emotional papers where he could release some of his internal misery and homesickness, and nearly all of them unable to be sent. (Perhaps the letter to Diana, the Trinidadian fabric included, was salvageable. He could give it to her at school – although what kind of uproar this would cause to the delicate social fabric of the girls’ side of the room, he was unsure. Perhaps it was best to deliver it to her house. Or just to forget about salvaging it at all and save the scraps for a time when the girls – and boys – were less emotionally apt to make everything bigger than it was meant to be.)

One in particular catches his attention – the most ink-stained of them all, at the bottom of the stack, a letter addressed to Anne. From the snippet he catches at the edge, it was never meant to be sent, or even seen again by his eyes.

“Good God,” he mutters, slipping the letter from the stack and skimming the legible phrases.

_Anne,_

_I think on you often. Every time a woman turns I see your hair… Perhaps it is because you are the one memory, the one place I have in Avonlea where nothing is badly tainted – perhaps it is simply that your hair is memorable. Carrots…_

_Perhaps the reason I think on you is because it is too painful to think on Avonlea, where my father lived and died. But you… You are safer, you’ve possessed worldly information beyond the borders of this town…_

_Do not let me forget the shade of your hair._

Folding the letter shut, Gilbert rakes a hand through his hair and sighs. Two years’ time has given clarity to the mourning of a younger Gilbert and given time to sort through complex emotions like crushes and love. He feels more at peace with his life now, with his world, with his emotions and with the graveyard of buried hopes at his back.

(Although if he ever manages to sort out the feelings for the girl beyond the simple fact that he wished to never forget the shade of her hair…)

The poetry of a steamer and the gorgeousness of a life unaffected by routine on land were tempting, tangible in the words of a younger Gilbert in love with escapism. This Gilbert, however, this land-Gilbert, firmly rooted in logic and rationality and the terrifying reality of living life without the option of escape, scoffs at two years’ past Gilbert. (Not scoffs. Just… _sighs_. This is not a period of his life he looks back on with mournful wistfulness, not anymore. He no longer experiences the urge to hop ship and run; emotional maturity and knowing his place in the cosmos teaches him that escaping his emotions only increases them tenfold upon a return.

Still, this Gilbert does not scorn a past Gilbert. Only wishes a touch more wisdom upon his heavy shoulders.)

“And perhaps a future Gilbert would wish the same,” he murmurs aloud, stirring from his reverie to the cries of the baby, “upon a current Gilbert, quite honestly stumped on which fork to choose on the road of life.” Pushing himself off of the ground and gathering the candle from the floor, he smiles at the ring of letters surrounding him on the floor. Perhaps a future Gilbert would uncover these and laugh heartily, sighing deeply at the lack of emotional maturity and frustration buried under the prose. Perhaps a future Gilbert possesses answers a current Gilbert lacks; he certainly hopes he might.

For what it is worth, Gilbert thinks, rocking baby Angelica as she whimpers, he does possess answers to some questions. Maybe some, like how to deal with the exact shade of hair he wants to permanently embalm into his memory, were better left unanswered. Perhaps he was yet unworthy of the knowledge, or perhaps the answer lies with the courage necessary to ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have not seen any of the new season yet! Please! Don't spoil it for me (or anyone else) who hasn't seen it yet! <3 
> 
> find me other places  
> on wattpad: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.wattpad.com/user/ffairlyfloral)  
> on pinterest: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.pinterest.com/ffairlyfloral/)  
> on ao3: [@clumsyhearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clumsyhearts)


	6. vi. to noise making (sing)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ocean soiree. high tide storms. summer. vi/xiv  
> [see the moodboard](https://www.pinterest.com/ffairlyfloral/anne-gilbert-avonlea-crew/)

_"Remember when you'd sing, before we'd move to it?  
And we'd scuff up our shoes, honey, the groove of it"_

.

The sound of the waves, combined with the wind of hours before a summer storm, makes all other sound drown in his ears. His curls whip across his eyes, shrouding him in perpetual halfhearted darkness while also protecting his eyes somewhat from the sea spray. Had his father still been alive, he would have agreed with Gilbert in saying this was the most rebellious thing he’d ever done, disregarding his time on the steamer. And it was _still_ underwhelming, this act of rebellion. His whole class celebrating the summer season, barely past sunset, toes sinking into the rapidly cooling sand of the seashore.

His classmates are yelling to be heard over the crashing of the waves. It truly will storm in a matter of hours, they’ve determined; the winds are stronger than he’s ever seen, and the waves break at alarming highs, rushing into shore at breakneck speeds. Where he’s standing, the waves lap at his toes.

The boys are all barefoot, shoes lying abandoned in some nook or cranny of the cliff, to be retrieved in less than half an hour when the winds would really scare the teenagers. Some of the girls are still fully clothed, boots tightly laced – Josie’s even wearing a bonnet, despite the complete lack of a need for one. Tilly clutches Ruby’s hand tightly, yelling something Gilbert can barely make out despite being less than five feet from her – “The wind is going to blow us over!” Jane rolls her eyes, but wraps her arms tighter around herself.

Diana has been coaxed to take her shoes off, and the two pairs of abandoned boots – hers and Anne’s – lay at Ruby’s feet. Josie suggested in a low voice before the winds started that they should hide the shoes, and Gilbert was not required to interfere because Ruby had grown a spine over the past year and stuck up for the greater good by herself, saying something about how Josie needed to grow up and stop playing childish pranks on her fellow classmates. Gilbert could not help feeling a little proud for tiny Ruby.

His curls are unable to block a tasteful spray of salt, and he blinks to find Billy and his posse standing a few feet away, kicking a grimy mixture of sand and sea towards anyone in their path. Gilbert raises his eyebrows, making eye contact with Billy. The boys don’t touch him again, and he finds room to let it go.

Besides, Charlie has found a better game, and even Ruby unlaces her boots and timidly steps away from the cliff’s shadow to join Anne and Diana in the radius of classmates who wish to participate in what Charlie dubs “The Run and Retreat.” As the title suggests, contestants attempt to run into the waves while they are receding, and then retreat while the wave advances, without getting clothing wet.

“Unfair,” Moody calls, for although they are in a close circle (close enough for Anne’s loose strands of hair to whip into Gilbert’s neck) the wind and the waves are far too noisy for a normal speaking volume. “The girls can just lift their dresses. They’ll never touch the water.”

“Moody, you can just roll your trousers to your knees,” Anne suggests. Gilbert laughs as Moody blushes. All three of the boys comply with this suggestion; Gilbert’s trousers are getting short enough that he doesn’t have to exert much effort in raising them. He desperately needs new pairs for this winter. Mary says if he keeps growing “like a beanstalk,” he’ll be past six feet soon. He doesn’t feel as though he’s getting much taller, because his classmates are growing at the same time, but compared to the scratch marks that Bash insisted on keeping up on the doorways of the Blythe homestead, he’s grown nearly half a foot since last year.

Anne’s a breath taller than him as of late, but he feels as though he’ll pass her soon. They are always caught in a game of cat-and-mouse, it seems.

He feels himself staring as he stands up from folding his trousers, and darts his eyes back towards Charlie, who is explaining the rule set to Jane Andrews as she unlaces her boots. He is always staring, but it seems wrong, to watch as she ties back her unruly hair into its thick single braid.

Gilbert is glad when Charlie screams for the group to go and they plunge into the surf, toes sinking into the damp sand. Jane shrieks in complete delight at the sensation, Anne laughs as she tugs Diana further towards the receding waves, Moody steps lightly around the shells that might cut his toes open, and Ruby becomes the first loser by plunging too far into the depths of the ocean. She yells as the cold water rushes in and soaks her calves and knees, wetting the ruffles at the bottom of her dress, and laughs as she waits for the tide to roll out.

“Ruby!” Diana shouts, laughing, from the safety and dryness of the shore. “Charlie said do _not_ let the waves touch you!”

She only shakes her head and laughs.

Now that someone has lost, the group collectively decides that the winner of the game does not matter so much as the concept – running into the ocean as the tide recedes, backpedaling frantically as the waves crash into shore. Nearly all of them become soaked during the third round, where the waves crash into shore much faster than any of them could have predicted. Gilbert ends up next to Jane, who is laughing harder than he’s ever seen her laugh before as Anne scoops up the water and tosses it in her direction. Ruby is soaked up to mid-thigh, Jane’s gotten her knees wet, Charlie’s rolled up his pants past his knees to avoid the uncomfortable sensation that is wet trousers, Moody’s fallen completely into the surf and retreated to the beach to dry off as best he could, and Diana’s managed to only wet the lace at the bottom of her dress. Anne, like Ruby, is wet to mid-thigh, while Gilbert has stayed almost completely dry.

“Someone splash Gilbert!” Jane yells from the shore. Diana, Charlie, and Anne are the only ones still playing with him – although they’ve all lost – but Anne’s eyes glisten instantly.

A burst of summer wind and she’s in front of him, looking down just a hair to make direct eye contact. “Would you like to win?” she yells. In this close proximity, with the amount of wind, the effect is overwhelming.

“Very much so,” he quips back to her.

She shoves him backwards into the oncoming surf.

He doesn’t remember the conscious thought of reaching out and grabbing her hands so that she’s yanked down with him. At least, that is what he _immediately_ claims. The facts of the matter are that she had pushed him in shallow water, he had fallen, he had grabbed onto her hands, and he had pulled her into the water on top of him.

They’re both soaked to mid-torso; luckily, the water hadn’t honestly been high enough to pull them into any danger. Neither of them bothers immediately standing up, instead grasping onto each other by the hand and laughing as the cold water shocks their nervous system to the core.

The sea spray in his eyes does not affect his vision, not this time. She’s in a moment of pure joy, rocking back and forth on her knees, laughing with her eyes shut in the dusky night, still holding onto his hands. He closes his eyes and laughs with her and the only word that echoes through his head is one of pure _contentment_.

And when he pulls her to stand, and they brush the wet sand off their clothing, and retreat permanently to the beach as the waves become increasingly dangerous, Charlie and Moody and Ruby and Diana and Jane are still laughing. Comparing their water stains and squinting at the fast-approaching clouds and laughing, as a group of rebellious not-quite-adults. He is so _content_ in his steady friendship with all of these real, authentic _people_ that it is almost overwhelming.

He does not remember the last time he felt this completely _whole_ in a group.

And as they troop home, and as it begins to storm, and as Ruby shrieks in delight and Jane, sensibly, brings out her brother’s jacket and holds it above herself and Diana, and as Anne and Charlie and Gilbert and Moody trek through mud and rain, Gilbert thinks on how blessed he truly is to have this island as his home. His family might be spread thin, and damned, if he is, truly, the last Blythe, but these classmates, these friends, these people were as kin to him as his own flesh and blood.

And as Anne spreads her palms to the sky and begins to sing an Avonlea working song, choking over the water running down her face, he thinks on his future.

On how glad he is to have friends that were willing to let go, to be young and ungrateful and rebellious for a few hours.

On how fortunate he is to have opportunities to travel and untangle his emotions before having to deal with growing up.

On how truly, astonishingly, gorgeous Anne looks when she is laughing and her hair is wet and plastered across her face, loose strands escaping a disobedient braid.

Would that he could make her laugh as she does now for the rest of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me other places  
> on wattpad: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.wattpad.com/user/ffairlyfloral)  
> on pinterest: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.pinterest.com/ffairlyfloral/)  
> or right here on ao3: [@clumsyhearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clumsyhearts)


	7. vii. as it was

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> family meeting. late summer. vii/xiv  
> [see the moodboard](https://www.pinterest.com/ffairlyfloral/anne-gilbert-avonlea-crew/)

_“Tell me if somehow, some of it remains  
How long would you wait for me?”_

.

He’s laughing as he shuts the door to his house, late in the summer, late in the night, at the point in the year when the taste of sweat and salt is palpable in the air, and as he sheds some of his outer layers and shoes and socks and migrates into the sitting room, where Bash and Mary are sitting up together, he’s still laughing.

“In a mood?” Mary asks, glancing up briefly from her quilt. It’s difficult to believe such a warm object would ever be necessary, given the heat of the summer, but during the winter it did really get cold. Mary is always overprepared. In this case meaning that she begins making new quilts every time she finishes an old one.

“What’s gotten into your system, eh, Blythe?” Bash chuckles, nudging him with his shoulder as Gilbert sinks onto the couch besides him. Mary, from across the room in her royal chair, shakes her head, tossing the tightly wound curls behind her ears. “You sound drunk, boy.”

“Not that,” he says, letting the last of his chuckles escape him. “Illegal here anyways, Bash, you scoundrel.”

“Just because somethin’s illegal don’t mean you can’t get to it,” Bash grins. Mary throws a spare button at him. 

“ _Doesn’t_ , and you’re setting a bad example for him.”

“I’m near eighteen, Mary, I can set my own bad examples!” Gilbert protests. He’d lied about being done chuckling. Bash and Mary had a bad habit of breaking him down laughing during the worst of times. Example: A somber scene, downtown, after a man had rudely collided with a horse-and-buggy and gone unconscious; Bash and Mary stroll up, arms linked, and Bash loudly proclaims something about moving the train of buggies along as _some_ people had trains to catch. Gilbert, tending to the man on the floor as best he could, consoling the wife of the unconscious, but still alive, man, throws them an ugly glance as he painfully suppresses his laughter. Truly, he cannot ever be sure why he’s friends with them, except that they bring him so much joy he’s forgotten what it was ever like to be lonely.

“So what _has_ gotten into you, if not illegal?” Bash prods, finding the spare button from Mary in the folds of his shirt. He arches an eyebrow at her. She pretends to ignore him altogether, focusing on Gilbert next to him. 

Gilbert sighs, drawing out the drama for the sake of his being near eighteen and having not nearly enough fun. “Bash, Mary, I am in love,” he proclaims loudly, throwing his hands out in front of him and sinking deeper into the cushions. 

“What the hell prompted this?” Mary, who did not suffer as Bash did through the months aboard ship, draws her eyebrows together. Bash, who suffered and continues to suffer plenty, rolls his eyes at his wife. _Everything_ , he mouths. Everything prompted this.

Enjoying the dramatic reenactment he is delivering, Gilbert says, with one eyebrow arched, “Where do you think I was?”

Bash begins to cackle. Mary throws down her fabrics and sewing needles, pursing her lips tightly together. If he were her son, he would have received a thorough beating; as the cards stand, he still may.

“Holy Jesus, son of Mary, Gilbert Blythe, I hope you have not just implied what I _think_ you implied, you dirty, rotten, sickening child.”

Bash, now positively hooting with laughter, wipes at his eyes as if wiping tears away 

“Mary, please, who do you think I am?” Gilbert laughs, and her face relaxes an inch into laughter as well. 

Seizing the moment, Bash grandly gasps for breath, pauses his laughter momentarily, and proclaims, “From now on I will be calling you a dirty, rotten, sickening child, and I will do so in public.”

Mary shakes her head, the corners of her mouth turning into a slight smile that neither Gilbert nor Bash could miss. Bash complained frequently about Mary’s smiles – whether he received enough of them, whether they were as fully powered as he would like, and whether he prompted most of them with his witty disposition. If he ever said a word to Mary, he could kiss getting a smile goodbye for the rest of the day, leaving Gilbert to stomach most of the complaints (and praises of how brilliant that smile could be) by himself. Gilbert didn’t mind, much; Bash put up with plenty from the boy, not the least of which concerned the woman of _his_ dreams.

“Mary, Bash,” Gilbert started, managing to fend off any additional witty criticisms from either of his friends, “With all due respect and love from the bottom of my heart, please let me tell my story. Come on, aren’t you dying to know who the lucky lady is?”

The response is instantaneous. 

“No.”

“Come on, Gil, we know already.”

“Tell us how you finally figured it out, dirty, rotten, sickening child,” Bash pleads, poking Gilbert in the arm, before shaking his head in dejection. “Aye, the term’s lost its appeal already.”

Gilbert allows himself to think on how exactly he figured it out – years ago, months ago, days ago, mere moments before – before settling upon the most recent story; his closest encounter with the emotion of love to date. Although, as the woman brought forth from his dreams was fond of saying, tomorrow was certainly a new day, and tomorrow would certainly bring more emotions with it. 

“I walked her home after the Pye’s summer soiree, which I believe must have been thrown out of spite towards the Barry’s soiree last year, which must have been thrown to spite the Gillises, who’d had the previous year’s – ” Gilbert pauses to take in the absolute lack of interest in both Mary and Bash’s faces – “but never mind that. The party was one part entertaining, two parts terrifying, and one part absolutely _holy_. The entertaining was the singing contest Josie suggested, the terrifying was the boy’s table and their horrifying banter, the holy was an argument.

“Anne is in a shouting match with Billy Andrews, who is certainly egging her on despite the fact that she doesn’t need to fall for that kind of bait. She’s always threatening to sock that boy in the jaw at any given moment. He could glance at her and she’d be ready to argue… Anyway. Diana is dragging her away as best she could, until Diana spots Jerry Baynard, and nearly forgets her manners, so I tell Di I’d take Anne and talk sense into her and we walk all the way to Green Gables instead of just around the party once. A good thing we left, too; no sooner had we stepped off the property than Mr. Pye returned from Charlottetown and he begins to yell, loudly, directly in Josie’s face.

“I am walking her all the way to the fence on her property, as I am a gentleman, and we’re discussing this year’s harvest and the thought of going back to school come autumn-time and the Queens study group that Miss Stacey is forming for those of us who wish to go and before I even have time to be properly flustered at the fact of me walking her all the way home, Green Gables is in view, and I’m waving goodbye to her and asking her to tell Marilla and Matthew hello. And then she’s gone, rudely leaving me quite alone with the realization that I absolutely _cannot_ live without her.”

Taking a long breath, Gilbert glances up to realize Bash and Mary are staring at him, possibly the most intently they have ever looked at him. He suppresses a small smile. This is what it takes, he realizes, for his friends to take him seriously; nothing less of a declaration of complete love, nothing less than a statement that confirms what Gilbert’s already subconsciously known for two years: Gilbert is in love with Anne Shirley-Cuthbert.

“You fell in love with her in one conversation?” Mary finally asks, leaning forward in her chair. Bash, looking up from Gilbert’s side, meets her eyes: He did, in fact, fall in love with Mary over one conversation. But he’s fully grown, and Gilbert is not. Bash has a stomach and a lack of self-respect, and Gilbert would actually prefer not to scare away the girl he loves. Or at least not to take any chances that may scare her. 

“No,” Gilbert returns, and Bash falls back, chuckling softly. The two are different, certainly, but still much the same – “I’ve fallen in love with her a hundred times in the past few days alone.”

“So what’s so special about tonight?” Bash is grinning, although everything about his tone is completely serious. Mary has quite forgotten her quilting, focusing every particle of her being on the answer to Bash’s question. The question of the ages, the question of the sticky summer, the question Gilbert had spent the entire walk home contemplating and the question he would be contemplating possibly until the end of his days at the rate he was content upon advancing their relationship now.

Tonight…

Tonight had been a side of Anne he hadn’t seen before, loose hair and a halfhearted braid that signified the end of the childhood era. Accompanied by the shrill chirping of cicadas and rustling of clothing, loud laughter and equally loud joking, laments over the nature of school and excited statements over the possibility of the Queens study group. Tonight had been natural and comfortable and right. Tonight hadn’t felt as though it needed justification, or explanation, or embarrassment.

He felt as though he could have kissed Anne right then and there by the gate to Green Gables, and truth be told, had she held onto his hand for any moment longer, he might have. He felt as though he could scream from the top of his roof. He also felt a little as though he could vomit at any moment from the amount of nerves running through his blood.

This, he knew, was _right_. This was the first – this was the grand revelation.

“Tonight,” Gilbert says finally, half-smiling, “I owned it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got a wicked head cold and desperately needed more Blythe-La Croix content. Voila.
> 
> find me other places  
> on wattpad: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.wattpad.com/user/ffairlyfloral)  
> on pinterest: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.pinterest.com/ffairlyfloral/)  
> or right here on ao3: [@clumsyhearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clumsyhearts)


	8. viii. shrike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> protective tendencies. idiotic quarrels. early autumn. viii/xiv  
> [see the moodboard](https://www.pinterest.com/ffairlyfloral/anne-gilbert-avonlea-crew/)  
> \+ 3 years past _i. nina cried power_

_"I couldn't utter my love when it counted  
Ah, but I'm singing like a bird 'bout it now"_

.

“Ah, but the autumns at Queens could inspire poetry,” Gilbert proclaims, sweeping his left hand grandly to gesture to the surrounding grounds. “Fall leaves turning marigold, hues of sienna, amber… The grass greying and withering away… Everything you step on makes that lovely little crunching sound…”

Anne laughs. She’s walking on his right, as she always has since the beginning of this school year, ever since he offered to walk her to her British Literature course – “It’s on the way to the biomedical school anyhow, Anne, really, I don’t mind in the slightest” – following one of their three shared courses and one of two shared hours together. She’s not clutching his arm, but if he loops his through the crook in her elbow, she will not protest – he has discovered this already after fending off a creep from her Mathematic Studies course, and when deterring another resolute boy from Gilbert’s dormitory, and on the singular occasion that he just wanted to link their arms and she had not protested. Now, she’s just content to walk by his side, close enough for the loose curls that she likes to keep loose to frame her face to blow into his neck when the wind picks up just so.

This semester has been good to both of them, he thinks, as he glances to his right to catch her opinion on his argument and finds himself momentarily distracted by her expression. He’s witnessed her in a more cathartic moment than this, but her rapturous half-smile and wild auburn hair and her ten thousand holographic freckles at any moment of the day still manage to knock the wind out of him when he catches himself off-guard. The feeling he gets when she grins at him in this state is one of a knife digging into his gut and twisting; the decisive hand of a lovestruck fool drives the weapon into his chest again and again.

His second painful sensation regarding her –

Gilbert wants to put his fist through the wall any time Anne mentions another boy that’s made a crude pass at her.

He supposes it’s inevitable, having her board in the city as she is, that she run across a motley crew of drunkard bastards willing to croon a sailor’s song at any half-decent woman they see. But the mere fact that he knows it is inevitable for harassment to happen only angers him more. And it’s not just city men, old and drunken, that are yelling obscenities and pushing her boundaries – some are his own classmates, fellow scholars at the college. By the time his brain has even registered that it’s Anne, sweet and fiery _Anne_ , that’s being harassed, he’s already boiling. 

He remembers once that he’d been talking briefly about a boy that sat next to him in his Chemistry lecture course and Anne had gone uncharacteristically silent. Sitting across from her in the library, he’d quieted down, asking her without words what was the matter, and Anne had whispered that he had stalked her outside her classrooms for weeks after she had rejected him.

Gilbert had confronted his neighbor but had not wrangled an apology out of him. 

And after that he did not speak to his classmate. 

Really, Gilbert wants to put his fist into a few choice jaws, but he’s sworn an oath – _Do no harm_. And harm he shall not.

(If a man so much as _looks_ at her the wrong way, though…)

“Autumns at Queens are lovely, Gil, I won’t argue about that,” Anne says finally, breaking him from his trance. He looks back at her, raising an eyebrow, pressing her to continue. “But autumns in Avonlea just have so much more meaning, you know?”

“Do tell,” Gilbert says as they round a corner.

“In Green Gables, I know my way around everything… every nook and cranny in every meter is as familiar to me as the back of my own hand. And seeing something so _intimate_ to me, something so _important_ to me, as it dies and changes and withers away is poetry, Gil; it is not just inspiring, it _is_ , in it of itself, poetry.”

She catches his gaze through her increasingly messy hair and the whipping wind, and _God_ , will he never be prepared for the way she can look at him?

“And the rest of Avonlea is turning and changing all at the same time. Gil, there’s ever so many more trees in Avonlea than here in Queens – and they all change all at once, too! So the marigolds and the siennas and the ambers are a hundredfold more effective back home than here. And here there’s pavement – back home, only your lovely crunching. Say all you want about autumns here, Gilbert Blythe, but you’ll likely never change my mind in this regard.”

“And I don’t intend to, Anne Shirley-Cuthbert,” Gilbert returns, lips curving into a semblance of an amused grin. “Just to say that here is nice, too.”

“Here isn’t quite home,” she says simply, and he only sighs in response, watching the thin line of his breath escape his mouth into the crisp air.

They contemplate the scenery on their trudge to the Literature building in quiet serenity, Anne watching a leaf meander in the winds across the quad and Gilbert watching the tendrils of Anne’s loose hair tickle at her cheeks, quite content with the world in its gentle beauty. He does love their walks across campus grounds, although he suspects the leisurely element will soon be lost as the first cold snap and frost approaches. He can find little reason to worry, despite the looming Biology exam on Friday – it was impossible to worry much in her company these days – until Anne quite suddenly threads her arm through Gilbert’s and mutters, “Talk to me."

He grips her hand with as much gentle force as he can muster and starts a cheery conversation about the newest advancements in biomedical science, conscious of Anne’s eyes glued to his face as she turns away from a blond boy passing them; the other boy’s eyes follow the pair and narrow before clearing and moving along. 

Gilbert does not let go of her arm, nor does he stop talking, until they round another corner and are reasonably well-hidden behind a campus building.

“Sorry,” she murmurs, releasing her death grip on his arm. He shakes his head.

“Anne, you have to tell me when someone bothers you,” he says, his voice catching on a few words. “They can be stopped…"

“Gilbert,” Anne says shortly, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, “I do not need to be looked out for nor do you need to beat up any boy who looks at me the wrong way.”

“Is this _sustainable_? Turning down every boy on campus and having them stalk you like this?” Insinuating that she’d been flirting with every man on campus isn't a fair statement, and Gilbert watches as Anne’s chest swells with repressed anger, but he’s far past fair in this argument.

Winter comes in a matter of seconds. Her glare is ice. “What are you suggesting, then?”

“Let me walk you to classes!” He throws his hands in the air, watching her open her mouth in protest. “Or Charlie, or Moody – or some of the girls – you just need company!”

She scoffs. “Come _off_ it, I do not need to be _walked_ –”

“You’re misunderstanding me!”

“No, _you’re_ insinuating that I can’t walk to my own classes – that I can’t stand my own ground! And, on top of that, not every single man at Queens College has asked me to court him!”

He chortles with malice. “Yeah, just me and the blokes from Avonlea left, isn’t it!” 

“You are _infuriating_!” 

“You are _exasperating_!”

“I do not need to be guarded like a _dog_!”

“I care about you too much, Anne!” Breathless, Gilbert practically pants in exhaustion. He hates arguing with Anne like this – their spats were usually pointless overall and easy to forget – but this was important and life-threatening, and he could not just let it fall by the wayside. “I cannot just…” _Let you go_ , he thinks, but he cannot say it. “I cannot, in good conscience, let you continue to be harassed like this – I won’t stand for it.”

Anne’s breathing heavily too, her face pinched into an expression of discontent. “Well, it’s not your decision to make, now is it?” she spits. “I don’t need a _babysitter_ , Gilbert, I am a grown woman with the liberty to make her own decisions.”

His temper flares, gathering in his throat. “ _Dammit_ , Anne, I’m not asking you for much!” The flare dies almost immediately. He witnesses her expression, collapsing, as he wipes at his eyes.

And suddenly she’s crying, too, and all he is capable of knowing is the crushing weight of guilt upon his chest.

“I just want you to be safe,” he murmurs. “I can’t –” _Lose you. See you in pain. Watch you panic about the men that follow you home at night._

Anne nods, grabs his hands, pinches her lips together to swallow the cries rising in her throat.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. She presses her forehead against his and closes her eyes.

“Will you walk me home tonight?” she murmurs, and her voice is so close to his that he has to stifle another sob – _Yet another hope buried in his graveyard_.

He nods, pressing her head backwards, before they split again to compose themselves before their practically forgotten upcoming course. He waits until she is inside the literature building before turning to the biomedical school.

It is hard to focus on the pig dissection, enlightening as it may have been. Gilbert cannot shake the images of her in pain. Crying for her own lack of safety in the school she had as much a right to as her assaulter. Doubled over in an alley, stabbed by a drunkard who didn’t know how to deal with rejection.

Gilbert cuts too forcefully through the entire lab.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This little story was altogether too fluffy. Winter has me in a seasonal affective disorder slump and I needed to write this little spat to bring some quality Anne and Gilbert to the table (after all, they're not Anne and Gil if they don't quarrel sometimes). But I've got some lighter chapters lined up, dear hearts, don't worry.  
> Who's got the countdown 'till season three drops on Netflix?  
> And, to all you #renewawae folk, I see you and I appreciate every bit of hard work you're doing. Here's hoping someone is willing to help us save our show.
> 
> find me other places  
> on wattpad: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.wattpad.com/user/ffairlyfloral)  
> on pinterest: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.pinterest.com/ffairlyfloral/)  
> or right here on ao3: [@clumsyhearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clumsyhearts)


	9. ix. talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> analyzing the classics. fall breaks. autumn. ix/xiv  
> [see the moodboard](https://www.pinterest.com/ffairlyfloral/anne-gilbert-avonlea-crew/)

_“I’d be the voice that urged Orpheus  
When her body was found”_

.

The little commotion in his hall is typical – Sebastian and Mary are not quiet folk, and their children are also fond of yelling at all hours. Still, he’s surprised to see the mop of red hair also joining in the commotion, standing opposite Mary with an overload of parcels and baskets in her hands and assuring her that this was no time for hospitality – “Oh, I don’t want to be a bother, I just have a book for Gilbert – no, really, Mary, no need for the kettle. You seem to have your hands full of toddler anyhow.”

He jogs down the main stairs in his home, calling out, “To what do I owe this great pleasure, Miss Shirley-Cuthbert?” Relieving Mary of Angelica – the terrible toddler in question – for a few moments while she runs off into the heart of the home to retrieve a pie from the oven, he entertains Anne’s quick recapturing of the events of the past few days. 

Anne’s been in Charlottetown to visit Josephine Barry for a few days, Diana and Minnie May in tow, and it is truly astonishing how much trouble she manages to get up to despite being gone for so few hours. But they have catching up to do regardless – he hasn’t seen her for more than a few minutes since a few weeks or so ago, and although the frequency of their meetings is about to increase again with the end of the Queens autumn break in six short days, he has missed her shenanigans so.

They had long resolved their solitary spat over Anne’s walking partners. Gilbert walked her home more days than not, and she’d confessed over a study session together that she had not had unfortunate incidents with the male population of Queens in a long while, which made him breathe a little easier.

After handing Angelica back to her mother and assuring Mary he’d be back in half an hour to drag Sebastian from the fields, he convinces Anne to let him walk her home so she could tell him about this book she was hung up about. Once he’s outside, shouldering his worn brown coat, he manages to convince her to hand him a few of her many parcels – she compromises reluctantly at three out of the ten she’s holding.

“I haven’t seen you this worked up over a book in long time, Shirley,” he says, once she’s rearranged her stack of items and handed over the three she is willing to sacrifice. She grins a little.

“Aye, you’ve yet to see me upset over any of the books in our General English curricula this year, Gilbert,” she retorts, “they’re all bland. I was wishing we might finally get to analyze more advanced novels, given we’re in college now, but I suppose not.”

“They aren’t all bland,” Gilbert returns, frowning at her. “I quite liked Shakespeare’s _Henry V_.”

“Oh, I loved that story,” she says, “but, you see, I’d already read it.”

“That seems more like your issue than the curricula, then,” he grins, and she laughs.

Anne abruptly remembers why she’d asked to speak with him in the first place and manages to tip the enthralling book in question into his hands without upsetting her stack of parcels, familiar spark in her eyes and all. He examines the cover, reading the embossed gold text wearing thin over the weathered brown leather.

“ _Orpheus and Eurydice_?” he asks, tearing his eyes from the worn book and glancing over at her. She’s evidently excited, smiling widely with her crooked canines on full display. Strands of her hair blow into her face, but without the use of her hands, she cannot tuck them behind her ears. Gilbert’s almost tempted to do the job himself, but refrains.

“Bought it when I was in town, at a secondhand shop,” she explains. “Ms. Barry and I were browsing for books, and she recommended it to me. Well, I was engrossed with the book on the train home – read it cover-to-cover – and by the time I finished I knew I needed to speak with someone about it.”

Gilbert cannot help but feel a little joyed by the fact that he was the selected person to talk literature with her. Maybe it was because they were the only two semi-competent students in Avonlea, but still. Nary two years ago she had yet to speak more than a few sentences at a time to him because of the hate she embarked to bestow upon him – now she shared her own personal books with him, needing someone to speak to about their contents. Quite a growth.

“May I ask a question?” he teases jovially, and she laughs a little as she shakes her head.

“Ask away.”

“Why did you choose to speak _me_ with about this book?”

Her grin widens as she glances up at him.

“Well, I suppose it cannot be because of your literary analysis skills,” she jokes. Referring of course to his many attempts at essays that unpacked the strategies and language of modern literature, which fell short of her great expectations, she chortles at her own humor. He laughs with her. It’s well known that literature is not his strong suit. He trusts her well enough with that.

“No,” he agrees, tucking the book under his arms.

“No, I think I wanted you to read this because…because I like hearing what you think about things,” she confesses. “I loved this book most exceptionally, and I wanted someone to speak with me and truly be _invested_ in what they were saying, and no one is _quite_ as good as you at investing yourself into debating with me.”

Even when Gilbert reviews the conversation in his head later that evening, factoring in the glances and hopes, it is no declaration of undying love. It is a book loaned, plain and simple. One that she expects back in her hands in a week’s time, as she’d made him promise before he left her property. He doesn’t even begin to dream of any world in which this is a circumstance of careful romance – in which this is the inciting incident. 

The text does remind him very much of Anne, as he tells her when he presses the book back into her hands four days later. He’d left a few notes along the margins, alongside her scrawling cursive, communicating the plot and its discrepancies, but the titular characters were his main focus – they served as an excellent metaphor for Gilbert and Anne’s friendship.

He neglects to tell her his _exact_ thoughts, but he communicates something along the lines of Anne being similar to Orpheus and he Eurydice. Anne laughs at this fantasy, assuring him that she cannot sing worth two chickens.

“No,” he agrees, again, having been subject to choir concerts (Mrs. Lynde’s chosen instrument of torture to the younglings of Avonlea). “But I would follow you anywhere, Anne.”

Leaning over her fence, the crinkles around her eyes soften, revealing a few more freckles tucked in the folds of her skin, the familiar glimmer in her eyes reflected in the pools of sunlight. She squeezes a few of his fingers together and says simply, “I would be honored to lead you, Gil.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my favorite song of Hozier's album. Not my favorite chapter, but one of the ones I wrote very early. Because, you know, it was my favorite song, and I was feelin inspired.  
> I wrote this before our first season three trailer came out!! And also I don't want Mary to suffer, so she lives and she's got a few kids. In my head they're named Angelica and Thomas and I honestly cannot tell you if I wrote that into an upcoming chapter or not! So yeah. It's loving Mary hours, folks.  
> Season three? Iconic, we stan forever. And oh yeah. #renewannewithane  
> If you comment my heart will sing forever but I'm just happy you're here and reading!! Thank you, my darlings.
> 
> find me other places  
> on wattpad: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.wattpad.com/user/ffairlyfloral)  
> on pinterest: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.pinterest.com/ffairlyfloral/)  
> or right here on ao3: [@clumsyhearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clumsyhearts)


	10. x. be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> grief. autumn. x/xiv  
> [see the moodboard](https://www.pinterest.com/ffairlyfloral/anne-gilbert-avonlea-crew/)

_“And, lover, be good to me  
Be there and just as you stand”_

.

It is quite possibly the most beautiful day he has ever experienced in his short years upon this gorgeous planet when she receives the telegram that ruins her entire existence.

Anne finds Gilbert just outside his dormitory building, lying sprawled across the grass underneath the majestically handsome maple tree, his biology notes strewn about the dead grass and leaves, weighted down by his pen and ink and some spare rocks acting as weights. The weak late autumn sunlight filters through the tree leaves, throwing a dappled glow on his horizontal form. He feels as though he is the photographic representation of relaxation, melting through the cold ground straight into the earth. He could decompose on the spot and become an example of the nitrogenous decay that he and his classmates were studying. 

The quad is so silent that a pin dropping could be heard, autumnal winds being still for the remainder of the day. Not even a leaf rustles in the calm before the inevitable storms of the night. Thus, Gilbert opens his eyes when he hears her frantic footsteps – and isn’t it funny, he could learn anyone’s step but hers would _always_ be the most familiar – and props himself up on an elbow, shading his eyes with his free arm from the setting sun.

She’s paused across the pavement as she searches for him.

“How’re your studies coming along, Miss Shirley-Cuthbert?” Gilbert drawls with a grin as he pushes himself off the ground fully. Her eyes dart to his and he can hear her over the silence of the grounds muttering “Oh, thank God,” before she crosses the pavement. Her heeled boots click on the ground. (Even without the heel, she’s only a few inches shorter than him, tall enough to put her nose to his neck. She’s taller than every other girl he knows and somehow, it’s perfectly fitting.) She’s worrying at a piece of paper between her hands, and her gait is anxious.

Gilbert loses the grin as he studies her face, a careful balance of poise and worry.

Anne loses all semblance of composure in the next second, graciously breaking down into sobs as her eyes study his face.

Instinctually, he wraps her in his arms, squeezing her shaking form tightly against his chest and burying his face into her hair. (Never mind the stares from his classmates, never mind the page of biology notes currently sacrificing itself to the winds, never mind the feeling that his face in Anne’s hair brings to the surface of his mind.) Her body is essentially clay in his molding arms, limp as if her puppeteer has neglected her strings, weak in the face of some strife.

He does not mold her, does not puppet her; he only holds her tighter until her arms regain movement and wrap around his shoulders. 

“What’s happened?” he murmurs, rubbing circles in her back like he did for Mary when she was sick during her pregnancies. She inhales sharply and disentangles herself from him.

Gilbert knows it’s probably not right, but he misses her warmth as soon as she steps backwards.

“It’s –” She chokes on her tears and her hand flies up to cover her mouth. 

This is the first time he has ever seen Anne Shirley-Cuthbert rendered completely speechless.

At a loss, she presses the paper she’d been twisting in her hands into his chest and cries into her hand. Gilbert moves to stand next to her and wrap her in a one-armed embrace while he awkwardly unfolds and smooths the paper with his remaining arm.

The telegram – as he discovers, this is the paper clutched in her hands – is not detailed, but it contains no urgency. 

MISS SHIRLEY STOP

MR MATTHEW CUTHBERT HAS SUFFERED A MASSIVE HEART ATTACK WHILST WORKING AT HIS FARM STOP HE PASSED AWAY ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT UNDER MS CUTHBERTS CARE STOP MS CUTHBERT IS KINDLY REQUESTING YOUR PRESENCE AT GREEN GABLES FOR HIS FUNERAL ON THE FOLLOWING WEDNESDAY STOP SHE MISSES YOU GREATLY STOP END MESSAGE

“Oh,” Gilbert murmurs, and then, “Oh.” He inhales sharply and glances back down at the telegram.

This – this cruel telegram, this informal and unfeeling and heartless amalgamation of letters, tapped through a wire – this was a horrid way to inform the only daughter of Matthew Cuthbert, the light of his solitary life, that his heart had failed him. Under such circumstances – but the letter system moved too slowly, of course – and poor Marilla must have travelled by herself to the post office to send the message –

His brain moves too slowly to process the implications of this message. Gilbert’s thoughts are usually a racing track of ideas, medical texts, formulas – with this, they have stilled to almost nothingness. It is only reminiscent of the time in which his own father died – in which he had not felt emotion for weeks, months. Years?

How can the man who helped Gilbert run his farm, who practically raised the first year of crops alongside him, who was a constant positive pressure in his life, be gone? And if _Gilbert_ was feeling this depth of emotion for Matthew – Anne must have been so devastated. 

His hand falls from Anne’s waist and he inhales sharply again before starting to cry. The paper crumples in his fist and he turns to face Anne head on through the gathering of tears in his eyes.

“Gilbert,” she murmurs, tilting her chin up the few inches that it takes to look up at him fully, and maybe _this_ is why he likes having her so tall – because she doesn’t have to look so far up at him, she doesn’t feel so distant. He blindly swipes a tear from his eye.

“Anne,” he whispers. His hand, shaking, moves to her own cheek, his thumb swiping at her eye hopelessly, and he’s struck with the magnitude of his boldness, of the strength of their friendship, of feelings he only dares to explore when he lays awake at night, eyes trained on the ceiling of his dormitory.

“Gilbert, I don’t know what to think,” she sobs finally, voice breaking on every note. Her hands are shaking. “I… God. I have to pack my clothes and textbooks and secure a train ticket and make sure Marilla is alright and settle his estate and find a way to split my time between college and home and – ”

“Anne,” Gilbert says sharply as she rakes her fingernails across the skin of her wrists. Shoving the ruined telegram into his pocket, he takes both of her hands in his and pulls her further back into the shade by his notes. She hiccups. “Breathe,” he instructs. “I’m coming home with you.”

“No,” she says immediately. “You have schoolwork to do and… and… cadaver lab experiments! You don’t need to worry. Marilla and I will have each other, and Jerry can help with the farm while we finish the harvest, and I’ll just stay there until I’m no longer needed. College – ” she hiccups again, wiping a tear away with the fabric of her shirt and shoulder – “can wait. I need to be home for Marilla. But you needn’t… you needn’t sacrifice your education.”

Gilbert sighs and releases her hands. “I’m coming home with you.” He bends down and gathers up his textbook and handwritten notes from their place on his study area of rest. “I know you don’t _need_ me to come with you. But I also know what it’s like to lose a father, Anne, and I know I would have appreciated company at his funeral. And I also know I was too scared to ask. Just… I want to _help_ , Anne, I want to help make it a little easier.”

She reaches out and plucks a browning leaf out of the holes in his sweater. Lets it fall on the ground.

“Will you let me help you?” It’s barely a whisper, barely a request. 

Anne sighs and falls into his chest, nose digging into his neck, arms wrapping with little weight around his stomach. He keeps her head and back stable against his form, keeping her afloat but refusing to mold her into a more amiable form. Gilbert knows there are other boys who would move her hands and mourning body to suit themselves. The thought makes his blood boil.

His hands clench in her curls, his breathing aligns with her heartbeat, the weight of the telegram carrying his body down. 

“Will you come home, Gil?” Anne whispers on his collarbone, and every centimeter of his skin is alive, alive, _alive_. 

In response, he only moves his head a little lower and presses a chaste kiss to her cheek, nodding into her neck. 

Whichever poet wrote about grief being tangible – Gilbert can feel the fickle fingers of grief reaching through his torso, tugging his heart down to rest in its hidey-hole next to his stomach. He can feel grief in his fingertips, sore after hours of notetaking, weak after clasping and unclasping his suitcase while he packs his clothing for home. He can feel grief in the very soil Matthew Cuthbert was laid to rest in, grief in the air around Green Gables, grief in the way a tired sister hangs her head in prayer.

Gilbert feels grief in the silence that Anne brings on their train ride back to school. She’s cried herself clean and can find no joy in the words she loves so much. 

Gilbert can feel grief in her palm when he takes her hand, their fingers entangled underneath the folds of her skirt.

Her grief is the most tangible of all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Folks, I sincerely apologize  
> find me other places  
> on wattpad: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.wattpad.com/user/ffairlyfloral)  
> on pinterest: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.pinterest.com/ffairlyfloral/)  
> or right here on ao3: [@clumsyhearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clumsyhearts)


	11. xi. dinner & diatribes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> grading schoolwork. contentment. winter. xi/xiv  
> \+ 4 years past _i. nina cried power_  
> [see the moodboard](https://www.pinterest.com/ffairlyfloral/anne-gilbert-avonlea-crew/)

_“Honey, I laugh when it sinks in  
A pillar I am, upright”_

.

“It’s hopeless,” she groans, tugging her fingers through her ever-knotted hair. “Completely and utterly despondent.”

“Anne, you’re just saying that because _you’ve_ lost hope,” Gilbert tells her, turning to the side. She’s resting her head on her palms, elbows propped on the table. In front of her lays the stack of essays she’d assigned to her children just before the holidays – now the holidays are upon her and she has twenty-some papers to edit and grade. “That doesn’t mean the situation is completely _without_ hope.”

“In hindsight,” she sighs, glancing up at him from beneath a lock of stray hair, “I was being completely idiotic when I assigned these. When did I think I was going to grade them, given the fact that I have a grand total of _half an hour_ of time to myself per week?”

“Really, I think your greatest mistake was promising your children that you would return them immediately after the holidays,” he tells her, and she groans again. “I told my class I wouldn’t be grading anything over the break.”

“You know I would lose my place at the school if I said that,” she reminds him softly, and he remembers how precariously she stands in her position. Being both a woman and a revolutionary did not sit well with the elders of the Avonlea school board, especially now that Rachel Lynde had resigned her position upon her husband’s untimely passing. Mrs. Lynde lives with Marilla now in Green Gables, to help manage the farm and the two extra children Marilla had managed to accumulate. Marilla herself often jokes that Anne softened her to her wit’s end – the two children are angels, though, and Gilbert’s sure Marilla cannot mind taking care of them.

Standing to find the teakettle, Gilbert leaves Anne sitting in a mess of auburn curls and poorly written essays, a smudge of bright in the bleak winter. He’d travelled from his house to offer some of Mary’s spiced pumpkin cake to Marilla and Rachel – had ended up staying to help Anne and Davy and Dora with their household chores and pre-Christmas decorating. Around suppertime, the snow had started coming down hard, and Anne had worn him down until he resolved to stay the night – “I refuse to let you die of pneumonia because you meandered home after staying unnecessarily at my home and leaving stupidly during a terrible snowstorm” were her exact words upon the subject. The snow was fully storming down now, swirling in patterns with the wind currents and plastering onto the windows. Even after the storm calmed, walking to Bash and Mary’s home would be difficult. He certainly wasn’t in a hurry to leave, except to avoid the endless teasing he was sure to be subject to when he returned. (He can practically hear Bash taunting already: _Oh, spending the night with her, now, are we?_ )

He’s just filled the kettle and set out two mugs when he hears her call from the opposite room.

Poking his head around the doorframe, he replies, “What is it?”

“If I just marked up thought process errors…” she mumbles into her palms, before pushing her hair out of her face and staring up at him. “Is that a terrible thing? To ignore the grammar errors?”

For a moment, he’s endlessly distracted by the volume of the loose hair falling in messy curls around her face. Her expression is so exhausted that it almost looks like she’s just woken up, or is a half-minute from sleep. He has been subject to dreams in which he wakes up with her hair splayed on the pillowcase next to his, her breathing even and controlled, and even in those the shadow of Anne pales in comparison to this form sitting in front of him.

He is, however, conscious of staring too long after she’s just asked him a question, and so forces himself to think on the subject. On one hand, it would make the grading go much faster to only focus on thought process errors, and the students would be much happier with their results without getting marked down for their copious grammar errors. On the other hand, not _checking_ their grammar was not going to _improve_ their grammar.

“It’s not a _terrible_ thing,” he says slowly, tapping his fingers on the doorframe. “It’s certainly not helping them improve their English skills.”

“Damnable English skills,” she grumbles, uncapping the colored pen once more and marking out a sentence on the top paper. Gilbert chuckles softly and returns to the kettle.

The kitchen’s only source of light this late at night is the fireplace. Marilla rests in her rocking chair, Rachel’s chair left with a quilting project skewed atop it, and Matthew’s corner chair left pristine in wake of his absence. His house never looks like this as of late. A sense of quiet calm only takes over after Bash and Mary and their children fall asleep and Gilbert may light a few candles to study, but even then, the chairs are never this neat and tidy, always having clothing and papers scattered about.

He understands needing a physical place to remember a loved one, though; the smallest of shrines to his father and mother exists on his bedside table and he dares not even dust those small portraits.

Rachel by habit leaves for bed early in the night; given that she now lives in Green Gables, quiet hours begin when the sun shows a hint of setting. Gilbert and Anne have been quietly mumbling to each other for hours now, her grading papers, him reading a book on human anatomy. Working as hard as she does and taking classes alongside that means Anne suffers many sleepless nights; Gilbert empathizes, having also decided to teach and learn in the same year. Especially in wintertime, staying up into the early hours takes its toll. Precious sleeping hours are reduced, precious candle wax burned or lightbulbs wasted.

As the clock chimes eleven, and Gilbert fights back a yawn while he stirs the tea into the mugs, Marilla stands from her place in the rocking chair next to the fire and nods in his direction.

“Would you tell her to put out the fire, before you both retire?” she asks, setting her knitting down in the chair, and Gilbert affirms. She makes her way towards the first-floor room, only turning back at the door to tell him, “Get her to bed soon, please, Gilbert.”

“Of course, Miss Cuthbert,” he tells her, tired half-smile tracing its way across his face, and she nods again before disappearing into her bedroom.

He takes the two mugs of tea and returns to the parlor-room, where she has finished the essay she’d been excessively complaining on and started on another. Significantly less angry pen markings skim the surface of this essay.

“Thank you,” she murmurs as he presses the mug into her hands and takes a seat in the chair directly behind where she is seated on the floor. Bearing down on the coffee table is significantly easier from the floor than from the elevated chair, she had told him earlier. He’d retorted that he hadn’t even asked her why she had chosen to sit on the ground.

“It’s late,” he gently reminds her, and she sighs, turning to face him. At this point in the night, his hair is completely wild from the amount of times he’s raked his fingers through it, and hers shares this quality. More than half of the rebellious strands have escaped her bun. Her tiredness is etched into the lines in her face – his, probably, reflects the emotion he feels.

It is most certainly imprudent and improper to be awake this late with a woman he was not married to, Gilbert thinks, but after four years of being close with Anne, he’s forgotten or mostly ignored the excessive rules of propriety. She does not like to be reminded that she’s expected to wear a corset and to never touch a single person; he does not like to be deprived of her touch if she’s willing to give it out.

He stretches his socked feet out in front of him until his toes just barely touch her calves. She does not flinch away from the touch as she refolds her fingers around her mug.

For a few moments, or perhaps hours, he watches her and she watches him, eyes flickering in the candlelight. The wind whistles outside the house, snow falling in heavy flakes, covering the roads and the fields and the town in a deep sleep. At some point, Anne returns to grading, settling her back against Gilbert’s legs and scratching away at essays. He halfheartedly reads them over her shoulder, only pointing at a few glaring errors. Mostly, he’s watching her shadows deepen and move across the paper, her lashes dip as her eyes skim the words, her hair rustle as she adjusts her position over and over again.

He could live in this quiet forever, never speaking to a single soul again, watching her emotions ripple across her features in slow-motion. He could watch the snow drizzle into sleet and sleet melt into rain and rain mold into sun knowing only the comfort and solidarity of her even breathing.

Somewhere he must have fallen asleep, because the next thing to prompt his eyes to focus is the chiming of the grandfather clock. The two of them are so exhausted that it takes them a moment to register the meaning of the tolling.

“Gil,” Anne says eventually, rousing the two of them from a drowsy half-state, as the clock chimes its last toll of the day. “Gil, it’s Christmas.”

He’d forgotten.

She turns to smile at him with tired eyes, body still pressed against his legs, and a soft warmth uncoils its fingers and spreads throughout his entire torso.

He collects their empty tea mugs as she watches the snow fall, idly capping and uncapping her red pen. Before he loses the fond feeling that’s nestled in between his ribs, he bends and presses a chaste kiss to the top of her hair, rubbing the coarse auburn curls a little bit.

“Merry Christmas, Anne,” he murmurs. She lets out a little sigh – barely perceptible.

“Merry Christmas, Gilbert.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was one of my favorites to write + it's been done for SO LONG now that I'm very happy it gets to see the light of day. Christmastime is the softest time of the year, change my mind.  
> Leave a comment if u so desire, it makes my heart sing like a bird  
> find me other places  
> on wattpad: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.wattpad.com/user/ffairlyfloral)  
> on pinterest: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.pinterest.com/ffairlyfloral/)  
> or right here on ao3: [@clumsyhearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clumsyhearts)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends! Thank you kindly for reading!
> 
> you can find me other places too like  
> wattpad: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.wattpad.com/user/ffairlyfloral)  
> pinterest: [@ffairlyfloral](https://www.pinterest.com/ffairlyfloral/)  
> or right here on ao3: [@clumsyhearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clumsyhearts)


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